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In 2025, the United Kingdom experienced over 300 recorded earthquakes, according to data from the British Geological Survey (BGS). The two most significant tremors, with magnitudes of 3.7 and 3.6, struck near Loch Lyon in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, just hours apart on 20 October. By 18 December 2025, the total number of earthquakes registered across the UK had reached 309.
The regions with the highest seismic activity included Perthshire, the western Highlands of Scotland, southern Wales, and parts of Yorkshire and Lancashire in England. Seismologist Brian Baptie noted that the country experienced “an earthquake almost once a day” throughout the year. Between October and December, 34 earthquakes were recorded specifically near Loch Lyon, which highlighted the west of Scotland as one of the more seismically active areas in the UK.
Dr. Baptie attributed much of this activity to geological faults such as the Great Glen and the Highland Boundary Fault, contrasting this with the northeast of Scotland, where earthquakes are rare. In December, Lancashire experienced two minor quakes within weeks. One of these measured 2.5 in magnitude and had its epicenter off the coast of Silverdale, in Morecambe Bay. The BGS identified this event as an aftershock of a prior 3.3 magnitude tremor that occurred earlier in the month.
Seismic monitoring in the UK is conducted through a network of about 80 stations managed by the BGS. Typically, the UK sees between 200 and 300 earthquakes per year, but only 20 to 30 are usually detectable by people. In 2025, there were 1,320 reports from the public who felt tremors. Larger quakes occur less frequently, with magnitude-four events happening every three to four years, and magnitude-five events only every few decades, the last of which was recorded in 2008 in Lincolnshire. Magnitude-six earthquakes occur every few hundred years, the most powerful on record being a 6.1 magnitude event in 1931 near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea, which caused minor damage along England’s east coast despite its offshore epicenter.
Earthquakes result from the movement and friction of the Earth’s tectonic plates. While the UK lies on the Eurasian plate, more than 1,000 miles away from the nearest plate boundary, it still experiences smaller tremors caused by shifts along faults in the Earth’s crust. This distant placement from plate boundaries means the UK does not face the large seismic events common in more tectonically active regions
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